Embassy Day

February 23- Monday
Embassy day
Well, not really day. After we went through all the security to get into the embassy we were only there about 45 minutes is all. She looked over our paperwork, left, and came back saying she couldn’t find our 1-600 petition to adopt. Do we have our I-171H (the form saying our I-600 was accepted)? Yes, we have it but it is back at the flat. “Well, you have this big stack of papers to fill out and come back tomorrow at 2:00.”
If we would have had those papers filled out we probably could have gotten an appointment today. Seems like a facilitator should have those on hand- save himself and his clients a lot of time.
After the Embassy we went to the hospital for the medical exams. After waiting there two hours (in a very small room with only a few toys—but at least there were some) we were taken into the doctor’s office. He speaks English so Kostya didn’t need to be there. He sat in the hall being antsy (about getting done before his train left at 5:00—we found out later). All the girls had an exam.
Keith and Kostya sent me with the girls back to the flat while they went to get medicines, some food and stop at the KLM Royal Dutch airlines office to get tickets. I don’t know why I always panic a little when I think about being left alone with the girls. We ate the left-overs from the McDonald’s breakfast (not much), then played computer games, put puzzles together and watched cartoons. I survived LOL.
When Keith came back it was alone. Kostya had left for his train. I had expected him to stay over night, didn’t even know that he had a ticket. I hope we haven’t offended him. Maybe he had something he had to be back for? I don’t know. He doesn’t communicate very well and it ISN’T a language issue. If you can’t tell I feel abandoned. But I guess he can’t help any more with the Embassy stuff and it really is nicer when he isn’t here, because the girls are forced to try to communicate with us rather than him.
Keith also came back with not so good news about the airline tickets. We had two choices and neither one was very good. The first was to just wait until Saturday when our tickets are already scheduled for and pay one-way prices (not sure why they couldn’t do round-trip—much cheaper). The second was to leave on Thursday but have a nearly 24 hour layover in Amsterdam. That might have been kind of fun as I have never been to Amsterdam but the girls wouldn’t have been allowed to leave the airport as they have no visas. There is a hotel in the airport that we could have stayed at but it was nearly $300 a night for one king-sized bed.
It was about this time that my ear got plugged up. Do you know how annoying it is when you can’t hear out of one ear?!?!?! I remember this happened last year at this time, when I was Cookie mom for girl scouts. What is my problem?!
We called Lonnie Rowland, the man who helped us get our tickets here, and he came through for us. He was able to get seats for all of us (they aren’t together, however—should be interesting) on a flight on Wednesday. Because it was short notice they were more than we wanted to pay but if you factor in the cost of staying here in Kyiv ($100 for the flat, at least that, maybe closer to double for food) it is a wash whether to go Wednesday or wait until Saturday. So, of course, we took the Wednesday flight—we miss our kids at home.
Keith brought back bread, cheese, water, juice, and yogurt. He found a little grocery store nearby but not much selection. So we had bread, cheese and juice for supper.
It was a rough night putting everyone to bed. We still had 2 hours worth of paperwork to fill out for the Embassy tomorrow. Girls (and Elijah for that matter) didn’t want to go to bed. K was VERY uncooperative and was pretending she didn’t understand us. A2 threw several of her fits. Even A1 got into it. Add the fact that I can’t hear and we are tired, made for a VERY long evening. How am I ever going to be able to do this without Keith there to spell me off??? I guess I’ll do what I always do: muddle through. But man, what a rough night.
When the girls FINALLY quieted down, we still had paperwork to fill out. I had a really hard time keeping my eyes open and my penmanship was atrocious. LOL but we got them all filled out (we hope correctly) and were able to finally go to bed.
Please pray that tomorrow’s Embassy appointment goes through without a hitch. It would be a nightmare (not to mention VERY expensive) if we had to change everyone’s tickets.
Thank you everyone for all your support, kind words and prayers. We would have not been able to do this without it!!